Drabbles and Ficlets
Firefly: Kaylee/Inara
Trust: R
Words: 600
Introspection had never been Kaylee's thing, but sometimes thoughts come upon a person when they've been forced by monetary constraints to do more menial work than should be necessary. Inara was due back soon, that was the problem. Or, not so much of a problem, really, given the situation. Their relationship had so confused Kaylee when she tried to think around it that she hadn't. Screwing screws and tightening nuts wasn't the most engaging of tasks, though, and Inara was making sense in a way she hadn't before now, even to someone who knew every inch of her.
She'd never been sure why Inara had picked her, over the millions of suitors who could offer far more, over the many more millions she would have been able to seduce, over Mal. It wasn't because she loved Inara, then, because she wasn't alone in that (even though she did think, quietly, that surely no one could love her quite so well). It wasn't just because she was there, because Mal was a lot more there than she was, and sometimes Kaylee felt a little guilty for getting twixt the two of them like this, when they said so much without speaking. But Kaylee knew Inara, and Inara knew Kaylee, every inch of her: the sweet, and the irascible; the calloused skin, and the softer places more often unseen; the freckle she was sure that no one else had even noticed before, let alone kiss open-mouthed in a way that still made Kaylee blush to think of. Perhaps it was because of that, then. Inara had seen her, knew her, and somehow, along the course of their friendship, Kaylee had become the one person in the 'verse that Inara trusted.
It was quite the responsibility, that.
So when Inara came back from whatever gussied up ninny of a client she'd been with, Kaylee was there, waiting. Sometimes Inara needed her and sometimes Inara just wanted her, and Kaylee could never decide which she preferred. She saw it as soon as she walked through the door from her quarters, her face set, her eyes dark. The knowing made Kaylee's heart and nethers clench in tandem, knowing she needed her, knowing exactly how she would bring Inara's smile back to Serenity.
**
"You trust me," Kaylee said later, no questioning inflection in her voice, one arm flung out above her head and the other in between Inara's breasts, her hand clasped, warmed.
"Yes," Inara said, the simple answer cutting through her tangle of thoughts. Kaylee sighed her smile, kissing the skin laid bare to her. Inara didn't understand the significance, but that was alright. She may have been taught by the finest people on the finest moons all about love making, but when it came to the actual love of the business, she wasn't as competent. It didn't matter. The sheets rustled as Inara turned to look at her, eyes dark and heavy, knowing Kaylee was looking for more, but for once, not knowing what she wanted. "Of course I do; you're a very trustworthy person, Kaylee."
It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it didn't matter, because it meant that despite what happened next, she would always have this moment. This moment, when Inara was hers, simply because she couldn't give herself to anyone else.
**
Glee Brittany/Santana
Out of Synch: PG-13
Words: 400
**
Santana was born all wrong. It’s like she was made with something loose inside her, but she doesn’t have enough hands to hold her chest open and tighten whatever’s out of place. She knows she’s supposed to feel something more than comfort with the boys she spends her time with, but she’s never understood the love people write songs about. She’d scoff and say the poets were making it up, if she hadn’t seen it for herself, painted plain as day on her best friend’s face. Quinn always whispered words of hope and promise to her, but it’s on the day of her wedding, when Santana hands her the ring to put on her fiancé’s finger, that she lets the dream go. She laughs through tears as Quinn kisses her wife - her wife - because Quinn deserves this in a way Santana doesn’t. She was never built to shine like that, and that’s okay.
Still, sometimes she shivers with the wind, when movement and light dances at the edges of her vision, like she’s feeling the ghost of that warmth she can’t find.
**
Brittany dances through everything life gives her. When her hamster died, she asked the boy down the street to teach her how to do a basic freeze, and she practiced it in her room until her toes tingled and she could hear the roar of liquid as it rushed past her ears. When her dad lost his job and had to move them all the way out to Ohio, she and the boy down the street waltzed around slowly filling boxes. When her dad got a call saying they didn’t have to leave anymore, she ran down to the end of the street, and the boy span her around and around and she thought--she thinks the dizziness lingered, because when she was back on her feet the world stayed tilted.
When she marries the boy down the street, they dance through the bright air, and it’s perfectly in synch, perfectly comfortable, perfectly in time, and she doesn’t know why it feels like she’s dancing out of step with her own life.
**
Glee Brittany/Santana
I Stand Alone Without Beliefs (The Only Truth I Know is You) PG-13
Words: 500
**
It’s not the moments Santana thinks it will be. She thinks that seeing Brittany’s face will be hard - having to sit near her but know that she can’t touch her, know that she knows now, what Santana’s known forever but still doesn’t understand. But Santana doesn’t feel like she’s breaking apart when Brittany’s there. That’s in the still moments, the ones between actions, where there’s only breathing and thoughts with too many ifs and not enough whens.
She tries to stop stopping; she paints her nails with stripes and sweeping colours and tries not to remember the touch of Brittany’s fingers, or the patch of carpet stained red because Brittany never put the lid back on. She gets a lot better at the computer games Mike and Puck are always beating her at, and spends an embarrassingly long time watching make up tutorials on youtube. She does more school work in a week than she did the whole month. She tries to drink, but she feels totally lame when she drinks alone, and when she’s with other people it’s always with her, and that’s dangerous.
She hates the moments when she’s forced to stop - when there aren’t enough drugs in the world to let her sleep, when all she can think about is the covers that aren’t pulled halfway off her body and the fingers that aren’t carelessly tangled in her hair. When she tries to watch a movie to block out the jagged thoughts crawling in her mind, and she looks over at no one to see if she found the joke funny. When she puts the radio on and every song is about her, or worse, times it’s been them. When she has school in a few hours and she’s still awake, so she cockblocks Mike to phone him and fall asleep with his voice in her ear.
She’s pretty sure Tina’s as sick of it as she is, but the only other thing that works is staying awake until the exhaustion clouds her mind, and she goes to school the next day so tired she just feels like dropping everything and taking another sick day. Except it’s the moments she thought would be the worst, when she sees Brittany and her eyes linger on her face like a caress, it’s those moments that end up being the only times she can feel herself settle. Even when she’s acting less logical than usual and making a mess in Santana’s head, Brittany’s somehow still the only thing that makes her feel like she’s herself.
**
Glee: Brittany/Santana
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 100
**
“Santana,” Brittany smiles, rolling the word around her mouth to try it out. She looks at her new friend to avoid looking at the blue band aid on her arm, and to try to forget the mean nurse sticking the needle in her elbow. “You’ll stay while my arm stops hurting?”
“If it’ll get you to stop crying, I guess.” At Brittany’s sniffle, Santana’s eyes widen and she nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I will. Promise.”
“Pinky promise?”
“Yeah, I’ll stay with you,” Santana says, clutching for Brittany’s outstretched pinky before she can make any more gross sounds. “Pinky promise.”
**
Years later, as she walks down the hall with Brittany’s pinky still clutched tight, Santana remembers, and holds her promise tighter.
**
Glee: Brittany, Santana, Quinn
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 250
**
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Mr. Schue and take care of this.” Santana was too busy staring at the charred doll’s head in Brittany’s hands to feel the weight of Quinn’s look, but she nodded at the squeeze to her bicep, some of the fear around her heart loosening. This was going to be okay. Quinn was going to take care of Sue, and Santana would take care of Brittany, and everything would be back to the way it had always been. When Coach had pulled Brittany’s name out of the hat for a random cut a few months back, Quinn had sorted everything out whilst Santana had taken Brittany to her house for a weekend of marathon sex. When Coach had decided that a one hour practice on a Sunday meant that Santana couldn’t go to Florida for a family funeral, Brittany had distracted her with old movies, icecream, and dexterous fingers until Quinn had talked to Coach. There was a lot between the three of them that hadn’t been there before - a baby, a pyramid, a boy in a wheelchair - and it meant that Santana couldn’t just believe that Quinn would take care of everything anymore. But there was a lot more that kept them together - a decade of history, of kept secrets, of favours repaid and debts owed - that meant that despite everything, when Quinn’s hand stayed on her arm until she looked at her, the sincerity in her eyes meant that Santana knew that Quinn was going to fix this.
**
Glee: Brittany, Artie
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 250
**
Brittany had been collecting dating rules ever since she and Artie made it official, writing them carefully on post-it notes and putting them up on the walls of her locker. Rule number one was ‘No kissing other boys’ and it was the only one Artie had let her know; the others she’d had to figure out by making mistakes, like little red F grades all over their relationship. Rule number two was ‘Don’t pay,’ and in a different colour a few days later, ‘but ask to anyway.’ There was one rule that wasn’t numbered, but that was just a big inked in heart in the centre of the other post-its. There were twenty two in all, but not a single one of them told Brittany how to deal with the inside bits of Santana - the bits that she usually kept to herself - seeping outside of her body, in her face and her tears, and thickening the air between them. But rule number fifteen was ‘Talk to Artie,’ so here she was, standing on Artie’s porch with her arms around her stomach to hold all her feelings inside. Artie’s mum ushered her upstairs, and she sat on Artie’s bed, trying not to cry and not knowing where to start. She told him what happened, her words tripping over her tongue and her heart feeling tight and big in her chest, and watched as the realisation crumpled his face. His voice broke the air with, “Do you love her?”
Number thirteen was, ‘Don’t lie,’ but Brittany couldn’t choke the truth out. She nodded instead, then rushed to explain, to try and make sense of loving two people to him when it didn’t make sense to her self. It wasn’t fair of Santana to tell er this now, when she’d just stopped feeling so lost every single time she wasn’t beside her. It wasn’t fair of Artie to pretend that she was the only one who was in love with two people at once. It wasn’t fair that her brain wasn’t smart enough to know how to keep them both, and when it was over, and she was standing on Artie’s porch with her arms around her stomach to hold all of her feelings inside, she still didn’t know how she should have started. She knew how it ended, though: Number twenty seven, ‘Never tell your boyfriend that you’re in love with your best friend.’
**
Tarot Challenge ( Link to table)
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #10 Wheel of Fortune
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
The not-knowing - sleepless nights and anxious kisses with crossed fingers - settled slowly into knowing. Brittany spoke of fate, but Santana still thought that was insane - it didn’t take into account all the work they’d put in to keep everything afloat. Still, with Brittany’s face red and arms crossed, Santana wished she’d never brought up the point.
“Look, babe, I love you with everything I have, but if we’d never met… and I know you don’t see how we couldn’t have met, but I’d be with someone else, because I’m no good at being alone, and I would’ve been happy. You can’t miss something you’ve never had,” Santana said, falling back on triteness to try and get Brittany to understand.
“Alright,” Brittany said unhappily. “I see where you’re coming from.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” Santana said, adding with difficulty, “But as much as my head tells me that eventually I would’ve fallen in love with someone and felt the same way about them as I do for you, I don’t really believe that, either. So… I can accept that there’s a little bit of fate in us.”
“A little bit of fate in us?” Brittany repeated. The knowing meant that as Brittany kissed her, there wasn’t the same giddy relief and wonder there had been, but there was a comfort and ease in the definite way that home filled her chest.
“Don’t tell anyone I said that,” Santana sighed.
“Never,” Brittany promised solemnly, her eyes regaining their customary twinkle.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #11 Strength
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 250
Note tacked to the Glee Room wall:
Glee fuckers,
You seem to assume that Brittany just popped out fully formed, shitting rainbows. She didn’t, okay? Britt likes making people happy, so she works to be as nice as she possibly can be. No one is automatically that awesome, she’s fucking patient with you ungrateful bitches. So when she snaps, don’t look at her like she’s a different person, shake your heads and say I must be rubbing off on her. Like you’re better than me. Like you’re fucking better than her. She’s allowed to have an off day. Her miserable shit of an uncle left her aunt and cousins this weekend, so yeah, apologies for the way she snapped at Hummel when he was whining about how his hairdresser cut his hair too spiky. You don’t need to get offended when she doesn’t want to talk about it, Mercedes. You all complain at her all the fucking time; she’s allowed to have one day in an entire year to be in a bad mood. Shut the fuck up about the scratch in your favourite CD, no one fucking cares on a good day, Dingleberry. And Puck? You try and ‘make her feel better’ again and I will pound your testicles into such a fine dust I could use them as chalk.
PS: girly night tonight, ice cream and Disney movies, Q’s place. Be there and make this up to her, or I will waste you.
- Santana Fucking Lopez, bitches.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #12 The Hanged Man, #14 Temperance
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
They told Santana's parents first; they thought they'd be harder, but they just laughed and said they'd known for years. Brittany’s parents were more difficult. It wasn't because she was a girl that Brittany's parents had a problem with her. Apparently, Brittany's parents had known for a while that Brittany liked girls. When, exactly, that had come about, Santana hadn't wanted to ask because she was pretty sure she was in the process of being kicked from the house. Brittany never told her she liked girls, she just kind of showed her, by kissing her out of the blue. Not that Santana had a problem with that. She'd always had a soft spot for the colour blue. Brittany was in her car, and she didn’t even remember getting to her car, but suddenly the warm palm to her forearm felt more solid than the seat underneath her, and Brittany was telling her to breathe and everything went fuzzy around the edges for a moment.
"I'm not going back," Brittany said, face set. "Not if they don't want you there. I love you and they need to deal with it. Clogged chakras and all."
Santana still didn't know what a chakra was, but even if it wasn't pore in Dutch, she was totally booking in for a facial tomorrow because Brittany's house? Was crazy scary. There was a reason they always hung out at her place.
"I love you too. But you need to go back."
"I'll live under your bed."
"Don't be silly."
"You love me when I'm silly."
"Maybe. But your parents, babe. You need them. They didn’t kick you out. Just me." She paused and added thoughtfully. "Plus, I'm not sure my mom would be too happy with you living in my bed."
So Santana was banned from Brittany’s house. As she told Quinn, that was just fine by her, but Brittany was upset enough about it that it didn’t quite sit as well with her as she pretended. She wasn’t entirely sure what she could do to fix it, but she went to the bookstore and bought up everything they had on chakras, and when she went to Brittany’s house and knocked on the door she knew enough to know why they were scared.
“I’m not good enough for your daughter.” In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best opening. “My chakras are blocked, and I know you think that I can’t love her if I can’t love myself first, and I don’t even know how it’s possible, or if I can fix it, or if I’ll ever be good enough for her. But I do know I love her. It’s like, the one thing I know for sure. Sometimes, I think it’s the only thing I’ve always known.”
Santana wasn’t sure if it was because of her speech or because Brittany had been walking around with a pout all week, but they let her in, and Brittany was happy, and really, that was all that ever mattered.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #13 Death
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
They end up back in the glee room after their graduation ceremony. Puck picks Santana up and twirls her giddily around the room, whispering in her ear ‘We’re free, S,’ and if Santana were anyone else she’d have tears in her eyes. Kurt will blame Rachel and Rachel will blame Kurt, but suddenly they’re all singing that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road song by Elton John, and Quinn is holding Brittany, both arms around her and foreheads pressed up against each other and they’re singing to each other like they’re trying to keep hold of quicksilver. And Kurt and Finn bump shoulders, grinning at each other, knowing that they won’t have to try to keep in touch because their parents will do it for them. And Artie doesn’t have a ring in his pocket yet, but wildly, he wishes that he did, instead of just having a magazine cut-out of the perfect one he’d happened on one day, but then he’s okay with this moment as it is, because Tina is bending over to kiss him, tears running down her face as she sings. And they’re all singing the final chorus, and every one of them is crying, and Kurt and Mercedes are swaying together, and Mike and Matt are trying to invent a secret handshake (it’s not too late!).
After the last goodbyes are said, Santana holds out a hand to Brittany, and Brittany smiles brightly through her tears and takes it, and the door snicks shut quietly behind them.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #15 The Devil
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
Brittany was always willing to hear the right things. Whenever Santana said anything wrong, she knew she just had to keep talking and eventually she’d say something right enough that Brittany would forgive her. Santana always heard the wrong things - ‘going out with Mike’ could spiral quickly into a dank hole of insecurity that made her emotionally exhaust Quinn and embarrass herself. It was her problem, though, not Brittany’s, so she kept it away from Brittany as long as she could. Still, she wasn’t completely surprised to wake up to Brittany in their room, hand on hip, phone outstretched.
“Babe, just a night out with Q, no big…” Brittany pressed a button, and it took a while for Santana to recognise her own voice, slurring something about Mike that seemed to involve an overuse of violence and soft body parts. Santana groaned, sinking back into the pillows.
“Quinn says that you do this a lot.”
“My head hurts. Can we talk about this later?”
And because it was Brittany, she just looked concerned, cuddling up to her side and kissing her temple, and Santana didn’t know whether to feel better or worse. “Am I loving you wrong? How can you not get it yet?”
“Oh, Christ, B. No, god no. I’m just a slow learner, I guess.”
“I’ll keep trying, I promise. Just talk to me instead of Quinn next time? Please?”
Santana closed her eyes, clutching Brittany’s shirt and tightening their bodies together. “I’ll start trying. I promise.”
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #16 The Tower
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 250
Quinn’s hand snuck a piece of celery from Santana’s plate. “Where’s Britt?”
“Home sick.”
“That’s why you look like your dog died?”
“No, that’d be because my best friend decided to lose her virginity to my boyfriend without telling me.”
“Oh, don’t even try to play that card with me, as if you and Puck were ever serious. Puck’s never getting out of this town, and you’re going to go…” she squinted at her. “Wherever you’re going to go. With Britt in tow, no doubt.”
“You’re talking to me about my future? Fucking rich. You’re queen of the consequences now?”
“Keep your voice down,” Quinn hushed her. “I still haven’t decided if I’m keeping it.”
“Of course you are, Q, you’re your parent’s indoctrination wrapped in a pretty little coating of idealism with a glittery naïve bow. Jesus fucking Christ. You realise this time in a few months I’m not going to be seen talking to you.”
“What’s nine months, right?” Quinn asked, her voice brittle.
Santana bit her lip. “Q…”
“Don’t. You’re right. You need to hold the fort for me. But when it’s over. You’ll…?”
“Be sitting right here.”
Quinn just clucked her tongue. “Make sure you miss my eyes when you slushie me.”
“Britt would murder me.”
“You’ll need to. Get a minion.”
“Fuck, Q.”
“Shut up. People will think you care.”
“Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna miss you.”
“I won’t miss you too.” She stole another piece of celery from Santana’s plate. “Either. I mean either.”
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #18 The Moon
Rating: NC-17 (Warning: het)
Word Count: 250
Santana and Puck had sex often enough that it had started to become almost enjoyable. She still preferred the part of the night where they played drinking games on the worn carpet in Brittany's living room, but the part that came after, when Puck reached over and clumsily pulled her towards him, that part was actually kind of fun. She liked the thrill of power that skittered up her spine when Puck had to clamp a hand over his own mouth to stop the others from hearing, and she'd figured out a way to get herself to orgasm when Puck returned the favour, so long as she rubbed her own clit hard and Puck didn't try to move her hand away. So when Puck whispered afterwards, 'we're so getting better at that, babe,' Santana let the silence drag on harshly for only a few moments before she answered with a noncommittal ‘uhuh.’ She turned onto her side, and blonde hair shifted. Her eyes closed, heat rushing to her cheeks; she hadn't thought she had any shame left, but knowing that Brittany had heard all of that, that was humiliating. She felt Brittany turn towards her, felt her eyes dig under her skin. She kept her own eyes closed, faking sleep, but moments later a warm hand slipped into hers. Santana let out the breath she'd been holding, her hand squeezing Brittany's. When she woke up in the morning she was still holding it, clasped between hers, tight against her chest.
Trust: R
Words: 600
Introspection had never been Kaylee's thing, but sometimes thoughts come upon a person when they've been forced by monetary constraints to do more menial work than should be necessary. Inara was due back soon, that was the problem. Or, not so much of a problem, really, given the situation. Their relationship had so confused Kaylee when she tried to think around it that she hadn't. Screwing screws and tightening nuts wasn't the most engaging of tasks, though, and Inara was making sense in a way she hadn't before now, even to someone who knew every inch of her.
She'd never been sure why Inara had picked her, over the millions of suitors who could offer far more, over the many more millions she would have been able to seduce, over Mal. It wasn't because she loved Inara, then, because she wasn't alone in that (even though she did think, quietly, that surely no one could love her quite so well). It wasn't just because she was there, because Mal was a lot more there than she was, and sometimes Kaylee felt a little guilty for getting twixt the two of them like this, when they said so much without speaking. But Kaylee knew Inara, and Inara knew Kaylee, every inch of her: the sweet, and the irascible; the calloused skin, and the softer places more often unseen; the freckle she was sure that no one else had even noticed before, let alone kiss open-mouthed in a way that still made Kaylee blush to think of. Perhaps it was because of that, then. Inara had seen her, knew her, and somehow, along the course of their friendship, Kaylee had become the one person in the 'verse that Inara trusted.
It was quite the responsibility, that.
So when Inara came back from whatever gussied up ninny of a client she'd been with, Kaylee was there, waiting. Sometimes Inara needed her and sometimes Inara just wanted her, and Kaylee could never decide which she preferred. She saw it as soon as she walked through the door from her quarters, her face set, her eyes dark. The knowing made Kaylee's heart and nethers clench in tandem, knowing she needed her, knowing exactly how she would bring Inara's smile back to Serenity.
**
"You trust me," Kaylee said later, no questioning inflection in her voice, one arm flung out above her head and the other in between Inara's breasts, her hand clasped, warmed.
"Yes," Inara said, the simple answer cutting through her tangle of thoughts. Kaylee sighed her smile, kissing the skin laid bare to her. Inara didn't understand the significance, but that was alright. She may have been taught by the finest people on the finest moons all about love making, but when it came to the actual love of the business, she wasn't as competent. It didn't matter. The sheets rustled as Inara turned to look at her, eyes dark and heavy, knowing Kaylee was looking for more, but for once, not knowing what she wanted. "Of course I do; you're a very trustworthy person, Kaylee."
It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it didn't matter, because it meant that despite what happened next, she would always have this moment. This moment, when Inara was hers, simply because she couldn't give herself to anyone else.
**
Glee Brittany/Santana
Out of Synch: PG-13
Words: 400
**
Santana was born all wrong. It’s like she was made with something loose inside her, but she doesn’t have enough hands to hold her chest open and tighten whatever’s out of place. She knows she’s supposed to feel something more than comfort with the boys she spends her time with, but she’s never understood the love people write songs about. She’d scoff and say the poets were making it up, if she hadn’t seen it for herself, painted plain as day on her best friend’s face. Quinn always whispered words of hope and promise to her, but it’s on the day of her wedding, when Santana hands her the ring to put on her fiancé’s finger, that she lets the dream go. She laughs through tears as Quinn kisses her wife - her wife - because Quinn deserves this in a way Santana doesn’t. She was never built to shine like that, and that’s okay.
Still, sometimes she shivers with the wind, when movement and light dances at the edges of her vision, like she’s feeling the ghost of that warmth she can’t find.
**
Brittany dances through everything life gives her. When her hamster died, she asked the boy down the street to teach her how to do a basic freeze, and she practiced it in her room until her toes tingled and she could hear the roar of liquid as it rushed past her ears. When her dad lost his job and had to move them all the way out to Ohio, she and the boy down the street waltzed around slowly filling boxes. When her dad got a call saying they didn’t have to leave anymore, she ran down to the end of the street, and the boy span her around and around and she thought--she thinks the dizziness lingered, because when she was back on her feet the world stayed tilted.
When she marries the boy down the street, they dance through the bright air, and it’s perfectly in synch, perfectly comfortable, perfectly in time, and she doesn’t know why it feels like she’s dancing out of step with her own life.
**
Glee Brittany/Santana
I Stand Alone Without Beliefs (The Only Truth I Know is You) PG-13
Words: 500
**
It’s not the moments Santana thinks it will be. She thinks that seeing Brittany’s face will be hard - having to sit near her but know that she can’t touch her, know that she knows now, what Santana’s known forever but still doesn’t understand. But Santana doesn’t feel like she’s breaking apart when Brittany’s there. That’s in the still moments, the ones between actions, where there’s only breathing and thoughts with too many ifs and not enough whens.
She tries to stop stopping; she paints her nails with stripes and sweeping colours and tries not to remember the touch of Brittany’s fingers, or the patch of carpet stained red because Brittany never put the lid back on. She gets a lot better at the computer games Mike and Puck are always beating her at, and spends an embarrassingly long time watching make up tutorials on youtube. She does more school work in a week than she did the whole month. She tries to drink, but she feels totally lame when she drinks alone, and when she’s with other people it’s always with her, and that’s dangerous.
She hates the moments when she’s forced to stop - when there aren’t enough drugs in the world to let her sleep, when all she can think about is the covers that aren’t pulled halfway off her body and the fingers that aren’t carelessly tangled in her hair. When she tries to watch a movie to block out the jagged thoughts crawling in her mind, and she looks over at no one to see if she found the joke funny. When she puts the radio on and every song is about her, or worse, times it’s been them. When she has school in a few hours and she’s still awake, so she cockblocks Mike to phone him and fall asleep with his voice in her ear.
She’s pretty sure Tina’s as sick of it as she is, but the only other thing that works is staying awake until the exhaustion clouds her mind, and she goes to school the next day so tired she just feels like dropping everything and taking another sick day. Except it’s the moments she thought would be the worst, when she sees Brittany and her eyes linger on her face like a caress, it’s those moments that end up being the only times she can feel herself settle. Even when she’s acting less logical than usual and making a mess in Santana’s head, Brittany’s somehow still the only thing that makes her feel like she’s herself.
**
Glee: Brittany/Santana
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 100
**
“Santana,” Brittany smiles, rolling the word around her mouth to try it out. She looks at her new friend to avoid looking at the blue band aid on her arm, and to try to forget the mean nurse sticking the needle in her elbow. “You’ll stay while my arm stops hurting?”
“If it’ll get you to stop crying, I guess.” At Brittany’s sniffle, Santana’s eyes widen and she nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I will. Promise.”
“Pinky promise?”
“Yeah, I’ll stay with you,” Santana says, clutching for Brittany’s outstretched pinky before she can make any more gross sounds. “Pinky promise.”
**
Years later, as she walks down the hall with Brittany’s pinky still clutched tight, Santana remembers, and holds her promise tighter.
**
Glee: Brittany, Santana, Quinn
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 250
**
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Mr. Schue and take care of this.” Santana was too busy staring at the charred doll’s head in Brittany’s hands to feel the weight of Quinn’s look, but she nodded at the squeeze to her bicep, some of the fear around her heart loosening. This was going to be okay. Quinn was going to take care of Sue, and Santana would take care of Brittany, and everything would be back to the way it had always been. When Coach had pulled Brittany’s name out of the hat for a random cut a few months back, Quinn had sorted everything out whilst Santana had taken Brittany to her house for a weekend of marathon sex. When Coach had decided that a one hour practice on a Sunday meant that Santana couldn’t go to Florida for a family funeral, Brittany had distracted her with old movies, icecream, and dexterous fingers until Quinn had talked to Coach. There was a lot between the three of them that hadn’t been there before - a baby, a pyramid, a boy in a wheelchair - and it meant that Santana couldn’t just believe that Quinn would take care of everything anymore. But there was a lot more that kept them together - a decade of history, of kept secrets, of favours repaid and debts owed - that meant that despite everything, when Quinn’s hand stayed on her arm until she looked at her, the sincerity in her eyes meant that Santana knew that Quinn was going to fix this.
**
Glee: Brittany, Artie
Pinkie Promise PG-13
Words: 250
**
Brittany had been collecting dating rules ever since she and Artie made it official, writing them carefully on post-it notes and putting them up on the walls of her locker. Rule number one was ‘No kissing other boys’ and it was the only one Artie had let her know; the others she’d had to figure out by making mistakes, like little red F grades all over their relationship. Rule number two was ‘Don’t pay,’ and in a different colour a few days later, ‘but ask to anyway.’ There was one rule that wasn’t numbered, but that was just a big inked in heart in the centre of the other post-its. There were twenty two in all, but not a single one of them told Brittany how to deal with the inside bits of Santana - the bits that she usually kept to herself - seeping outside of her body, in her face and her tears, and thickening the air between them. But rule number fifteen was ‘Talk to Artie,’ so here she was, standing on Artie’s porch with her arms around her stomach to hold all her feelings inside. Artie’s mum ushered her upstairs, and she sat on Artie’s bed, trying not to cry and not knowing where to start. She told him what happened, her words tripping over her tongue and her heart feeling tight and big in her chest, and watched as the realisation crumpled his face. His voice broke the air with, “Do you love her?”
Number thirteen was, ‘Don’t lie,’ but Brittany couldn’t choke the truth out. She nodded instead, then rushed to explain, to try and make sense of loving two people to him when it didn’t make sense to her self. It wasn’t fair of Santana to tell er this now, when she’d just stopped feeling so lost every single time she wasn’t beside her. It wasn’t fair of Artie to pretend that she was the only one who was in love with two people at once. It wasn’t fair that her brain wasn’t smart enough to know how to keep them both, and when it was over, and she was standing on Artie’s porch with her arms around her stomach to hold all of her feelings inside, she still didn’t know how she should have started. She knew how it ended, though: Number twenty seven, ‘Never tell your boyfriend that you’re in love with your best friend.’
**
Tarot Challenge ( Link to table)
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #10 Wheel of Fortune
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
The not-knowing - sleepless nights and anxious kisses with crossed fingers - settled slowly into knowing. Brittany spoke of fate, but Santana still thought that was insane - it didn’t take into account all the work they’d put in to keep everything afloat. Still, with Brittany’s face red and arms crossed, Santana wished she’d never brought up the point.
“Look, babe, I love you with everything I have, but if we’d never met… and I know you don’t see how we couldn’t have met, but I’d be with someone else, because I’m no good at being alone, and I would’ve been happy. You can’t miss something you’ve never had,” Santana said, falling back on triteness to try and get Brittany to understand.
“Alright,” Brittany said unhappily. “I see where you’re coming from.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” Santana said, adding with difficulty, “But as much as my head tells me that eventually I would’ve fallen in love with someone and felt the same way about them as I do for you, I don’t really believe that, either. So… I can accept that there’s a little bit of fate in us.”
“A little bit of fate in us?” Brittany repeated. The knowing meant that as Brittany kissed her, there wasn’t the same giddy relief and wonder there had been, but there was a comfort and ease in the definite way that home filled her chest.
“Don’t tell anyone I said that,” Santana sighed.
“Never,” Brittany promised solemnly, her eyes regaining their customary twinkle.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #11 Strength
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 250
Note tacked to the Glee Room wall:
Glee fuckers,
You seem to assume that Brittany just popped out fully formed, shitting rainbows. She didn’t, okay? Britt likes making people happy, so she works to be as nice as she possibly can be. No one is automatically that awesome, she’s fucking patient with you ungrateful bitches. So when she snaps, don’t look at her like she’s a different person, shake your heads and say I must be rubbing off on her. Like you’re better than me. Like you’re fucking better than her. She’s allowed to have an off day. Her miserable shit of an uncle left her aunt and cousins this weekend, so yeah, apologies for the way she snapped at Hummel when he was whining about how his hairdresser cut his hair too spiky. You don’t need to get offended when she doesn’t want to talk about it, Mercedes. You all complain at her all the fucking time; she’s allowed to have one day in an entire year to be in a bad mood. Shut the fuck up about the scratch in your favourite CD, no one fucking cares on a good day, Dingleberry. And Puck? You try and ‘make her feel better’ again and I will pound your testicles into such a fine dust I could use them as chalk.
PS: girly night tonight, ice cream and Disney movies, Q’s place. Be there and make this up to her, or I will waste you.
- Santana Fucking Lopez, bitches.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #12 The Hanged Man, #14 Temperance
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
They told Santana's parents first; they thought they'd be harder, but they just laughed and said they'd known for years. Brittany’s parents were more difficult. It wasn't because she was a girl that Brittany's parents had a problem with her. Apparently, Brittany's parents had known for a while that Brittany liked girls. When, exactly, that had come about, Santana hadn't wanted to ask because she was pretty sure she was in the process of being kicked from the house. Brittany never told her she liked girls, she just kind of showed her, by kissing her out of the blue. Not that Santana had a problem with that. She'd always had a soft spot for the colour blue. Brittany was in her car, and she didn’t even remember getting to her car, but suddenly the warm palm to her forearm felt more solid than the seat underneath her, and Brittany was telling her to breathe and everything went fuzzy around the edges for a moment.
"I'm not going back," Brittany said, face set. "Not if they don't want you there. I love you and they need to deal with it. Clogged chakras and all."
Santana still didn't know what a chakra was, but even if it wasn't pore in Dutch, she was totally booking in for a facial tomorrow because Brittany's house? Was crazy scary. There was a reason they always hung out at her place.
"I love you too. But you need to go back."
"I'll live under your bed."
"Don't be silly."
"You love me when I'm silly."
"Maybe. But your parents, babe. You need them. They didn’t kick you out. Just me." She paused and added thoughtfully. "Plus, I'm not sure my mom would be too happy with you living in my bed."
So Santana was banned from Brittany’s house. As she told Quinn, that was just fine by her, but Brittany was upset enough about it that it didn’t quite sit as well with her as she pretended. She wasn’t entirely sure what she could do to fix it, but she went to the bookstore and bought up everything they had on chakras, and when she went to Brittany’s house and knocked on the door she knew enough to know why they were scared.
“I’m not good enough for your daughter.” In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best opening. “My chakras are blocked, and I know you think that I can’t love her if I can’t love myself first, and I don’t even know how it’s possible, or if I can fix it, or if I’ll ever be good enough for her. But I do know I love her. It’s like, the one thing I know for sure. Sometimes, I think it’s the only thing I’ve always known.”
Santana wasn’t sure if it was because of her speech or because Brittany had been walking around with a pout all week, but they let her in, and Brittany was happy, and really, that was all that ever mattered.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #13 Death
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
They end up back in the glee room after their graduation ceremony. Puck picks Santana up and twirls her giddily around the room, whispering in her ear ‘We’re free, S,’ and if Santana were anyone else she’d have tears in her eyes. Kurt will blame Rachel and Rachel will blame Kurt, but suddenly they’re all singing that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road song by Elton John, and Quinn is holding Brittany, both arms around her and foreheads pressed up against each other and they’re singing to each other like they’re trying to keep hold of quicksilver. And Kurt and Finn bump shoulders, grinning at each other, knowing that they won’t have to try to keep in touch because their parents will do it for them. And Artie doesn’t have a ring in his pocket yet, but wildly, he wishes that he did, instead of just having a magazine cut-out of the perfect one he’d happened on one day, but then he’s okay with this moment as it is, because Tina is bending over to kiss him, tears running down her face as she sings. And they’re all singing the final chorus, and every one of them is crying, and Kurt and Mercedes are swaying together, and Mike and Matt are trying to invent a secret handshake (it’s not too late!).
After the last goodbyes are said, Santana holds out a hand to Brittany, and Brittany smiles brightly through her tears and takes it, and the door snicks shut quietly behind them.
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #15 The Devil
Rating: PG
Word Count: 250
Brittany was always willing to hear the right things. Whenever Santana said anything wrong, she knew she just had to keep talking and eventually she’d say something right enough that Brittany would forgive her. Santana always heard the wrong things - ‘going out with Mike’ could spiral quickly into a dank hole of insecurity that made her emotionally exhaust Quinn and embarrass herself. It was her problem, though, not Brittany’s, so she kept it away from Brittany as long as she could. Still, she wasn’t completely surprised to wake up to Brittany in their room, hand on hip, phone outstretched.
“Babe, just a night out with Q, no big…” Brittany pressed a button, and it took a while for Santana to recognise her own voice, slurring something about Mike that seemed to involve an overuse of violence and soft body parts. Santana groaned, sinking back into the pillows.
“Quinn says that you do this a lot.”
“My head hurts. Can we talk about this later?”
And because it was Brittany, she just looked concerned, cuddling up to her side and kissing her temple, and Santana didn’t know whether to feel better or worse. “Am I loving you wrong? How can you not get it yet?”
“Oh, Christ, B. No, god no. I’m just a slow learner, I guess.”
“I’ll keep trying, I promise. Just talk to me instead of Quinn next time? Please?”
Santana closed her eyes, clutching Brittany’s shirt and tightening their bodies together. “I’ll start trying. I promise.”
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #16 The Tower
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 250
Quinn’s hand snuck a piece of celery from Santana’s plate. “Where’s Britt?”
“Home sick.”
“That’s why you look like your dog died?”
“No, that’d be because my best friend decided to lose her virginity to my boyfriend without telling me.”
“Oh, don’t even try to play that card with me, as if you and Puck were ever serious. Puck’s never getting out of this town, and you’re going to go…” she squinted at her. “Wherever you’re going to go. With Britt in tow, no doubt.”
“You’re talking to me about my future? Fucking rich. You’re queen of the consequences now?”
“Keep your voice down,” Quinn hushed her. “I still haven’t decided if I’m keeping it.”
“Of course you are, Q, you’re your parent’s indoctrination wrapped in a pretty little coating of idealism with a glittery naïve bow. Jesus fucking Christ. You realise this time in a few months I’m not going to be seen talking to you.”
“What’s nine months, right?” Quinn asked, her voice brittle.
Santana bit her lip. “Q…”
“Don’t. You’re right. You need to hold the fort for me. But when it’s over. You’ll…?”
“Be sitting right here.”
Quinn just clucked her tongue. “Make sure you miss my eyes when you slushie me.”
“Britt would murder me.”
“You’ll need to. Get a minion.”
“Fuck, Q.”
“Shut up. People will think you care.”
“Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna miss you.”
“I won’t miss you too.” She stole another piece of celery from Santana’s plate. “Either. I mean either.”
Tarot Card Challenge
Prompt: #18 The Moon
Rating: NC-17 (Warning: het)
Word Count: 250
Santana and Puck had sex often enough that it had started to become almost enjoyable. She still preferred the part of the night where they played drinking games on the worn carpet in Brittany's living room, but the part that came after, when Puck reached over and clumsily pulled her towards him, that part was actually kind of fun. She liked the thrill of power that skittered up her spine when Puck had to clamp a hand over his own mouth to stop the others from hearing, and she'd figured out a way to get herself to orgasm when Puck returned the favour, so long as she rubbed her own clit hard and Puck didn't try to move her hand away. So when Puck whispered afterwards, 'we're so getting better at that, babe,' Santana let the silence drag on harshly for only a few moments before she answered with a noncommittal ‘uhuh.’ She turned onto her side, and blonde hair shifted. Her eyes closed, heat rushing to her cheeks; she hadn't thought she had any shame left, but knowing that Brittany had heard all of that, that was humiliating. She felt Brittany turn towards her, felt her eyes dig under her skin. She kept her own eyes closed, faking sleep, but moments later a warm hand slipped into hers. Santana let out the breath she'd been holding, her hand squeezing Brittany's. When she woke up in the morning she was still holding it, clasped between hers, tight against her chest.